The most impressive record was the highest percentage of women accepted in its history, though. The percentage of women accepted has increased every year since 2006, with the number being 8.3% this year.

The program, which pays stipends to post-secondary students who are 18 or older to write code for open source software projects, has also announced a record number of accepted applicants:

This 8th year of Google Summer of Code is the largest yet. More mentoring organizations received more applications from more students than ever before. We received a record number of applications – 6685 – from 4258 students from 98 countries to work with the 180 selected mentoring organizations.

We also accepted more students this year: 1212 from 69 countries. This year India supplied the largest number of students, 227.

The top country as far as accepted applicants for the Summer of Code is India with 227, followed by the United States with 172.

One of the open source projects that the participants will be working on is Joomla, which happens to be one of the biggest open source CMS projects in the world. Here’s a taste of the specific Joomla projects that the students will be working on:

- A Facebook API—This will enable Joomla powered websites to integrate their Facebook page content into their website and integrate their website content into their Facebook page
– A Google API—Google services like Google Maps and Webmaster Tools will be able to be integrated into Joomla powered websites
– Multi-language installation options—The option to choose from multiple languages, not just English, when installing Joomla to manage content on a website, blog or Intranet

The Summer of Code lasts three months and provides students with mentoring and real-world experience in technology development and coding. Without a doubt, this is one of the best ways for students to get a taste of what it’s like to work for a big company like Google once they’re finished with their classes.